Stress and the Holidays

Stress levels rise the closer the holidays approach, for many people, because there are invariant scenarios that are played out at thousands of dinner tables each year. The problem here, as in so many other instances, is how do we approach this.

You probably are steeling yourself right now for that yearly reminder of all the silly, embarrassing or just plain unpleasant things you either did or went through as a child. There's sure to be a relative who imbibes too much of the holiday punch and the result is a less-than-pleasant dinner. What can you do about relatives, friends, neighbors who don't know when they're treading on painful territory? Alcoholism doesn't only include people who get drunk every day. It also includes the weekend drunk or a person who goes to a party and ends up either having a fight or getting deathly sick. Many times it's fueled by insecurity and anxiety in social settings.

The one thing you can do now and in the future is to do what my brother taught me many years ago. Believe it or not, he was a wonderful big brother who felt I should learn to drive and I didn't need to wait to do it. So, at age 6, I was propped on his lap in a small truck with a stick shift and I learned to drive in a large, private parking lot. His words to me, which I can still hear today, were, "Anticipate, anticipate. Don't look at the car in front of you, look two or three cars in front of you and you'll be ready to react."

So, my word for you today is to "anticipate" just as I had been taught. Work on how you will handle this situation this year. You needn't be upset, you needn't come up with clever put-downs, but you do need to do something. What will work with this person and leave them with their dignity intact?

One thing that every host and hostess should be seriously considering is the removal of alcoholic beverages from the drinks available. No matter how you do it, take the alcohol out of the dinner. As we've heard, "The super ego (that wonderful control center) is dissolvable in alcohol." If alcohol is present and you have people who don't know when enough is enough, help them by not having it in your home for the dinner. This will avoid one of the prime reasons holidays can become truly stressful occasions.

Remember, also, there can't be a disagreement (sometimes long-standing ones) unless you participate, too. If you won't engage in this, it can't go on. Don't take the bait and you know what that "bait" is because you've seen it year after year.

Enjoy the holidays for what they were meant to be' a time to show your appreciation for good company, loving relatives and friends while you have a bit of relaxation and a good meal.

Related Topics: Stress: Coping Strategies, Diet: Holiday Stress

Mark Twain Knew Stress

Mark Twain knew about stress and he understood that finances could be a major stressor. So, when President Ulysses S. Grant was living in humble circumstances, afflicted with terminal cancer, Twain surmised the former President's plight. He also understood Grant's concern for his wife, Julia, who would be left with little money to care for herself after he was gone. Twain's creativity and kindness is not the stuff of which tabloids write and few knew how he engineered a spectacular publishing success for Grant's memoirs. Published in 1885, just months after his death, Grant's memoir has never gone out of print and it realized what it had been intended to do; provide for Mrs. Grant in her widowhood.

How many of us know of the stress, due to lack of money, experienced by this former President as well as another former President, Harry S. Truman, who left office without a pension, not a millionaire and returned to Independence, MO to live out his final days? Truman, too, had a difficult time financially and it was only because of the concern of others that he was awarded a small pension on which he and his wife, Bess, lived simply.

Two men who enjoyed the pinnacle of power in the Unites States and the world were left to fend for themselves when they were ill, old and in financial difficulty. So, the great and the average working person share something in common; financial stress. As Blanche Dubois in "A Streetcar Named Desire" said, "I have always depended on the kindness of strangers," but Grant and Truman had true friends, one of the greatest stress-reducers there can be.

Related Topics: Winning the Lottery Causes Stress, End of Life Decisions

Introduction

Thanks to my friends at WebMD, I have joined the world of bloggers and I look forward to sharing a number of things with you over the coming months and, possibly, years.

If you're not familiar with me and my background, let me provide a bit of information. I'm a native New Yorker and some people tell me I have a New York accent, while others say I don't. It's a choice between whether I think they're being polite or I really don't have an accent. I'm not sure.

I grew up taking the bus to school, then the subway to work and I've watched the wonderful island of Manhattan grow until I thought it couldn't grow anymore, but it did and does. I am amazed, dazzled and I love it, but I prefer to live in the burbs.

My family are all long-time Long Islanders who came there in 1880 to work, as one grandfather said, "for the rich." They were called, in those days, "servants" and they kept the homes, tended the stables and then the cars and felt they had fallen into the earthly equivalent of heaven. This despite no benefits and having to move, in season, from the estate to town where they lived in a tenement. So, my roots are deep in this area as they are in Europe.

I am a licensed psychologist and product of both the New York City school system and New York University, a school I loved and still do because of its magnificent library and film school. Film, I should tell you, is a passion of mine and I am working on a number of small film projects. It is slow going, but I figure that it's tending to my brain's neurons in extremely healthy ways and it's both an immense pleasure and a health benefit for me. Who wouldn't want a win-win situation?

I suppose you could equate blogging with short, short filmmaking in a way and it does seem like both journal and creative writing. I'll try to incorporate the best of both for you and my enjoyment.

Bring on the blog!